Thursday, 1 May 2008

Iraq loses its history as well

A hurtful and shameful story is brought today by Robert Fisk on how the cradle of civilization, Iraq, is losing its history as antiquities are being plundered for the pleasure of private collectors worldwide.

"The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilization – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation," Fisk says in Belfast Telegraph .

"The use of heritage sites as military bases is a breach of the Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954 (chapter 1, article 5) which covers periods of occupation; although the US did not ratify the Convention, Italy, Poland, Australia and Holland, all of whom sent forces to Iraq, are contracting parties" he adds.

“We called it our Berlin Wall,” said Saad Khalef, 41, told The NYT on March 6 story as he surveyed the newly uncovered ground where the walls had stood, as crushed and pale as the skin beneath a bandage. “Now we can breathe easy. Yesterday, I felt a breeze coming through, I swear to God.”The NYT's Anthony Shadid in a piece on Jan. 6, 2011 two days after Muqtada Al-Sadr's return from nearly four-year self-imposed exile in Iraq: In 2004, an American spokesman in Baghdad called Mr. Sadr “a two-bit thug.” On Wednesday, the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, called him “the leader of an Iraqi political party that won a number of seats in the March 2010 election.”